Waveguide Frontend Designs for Beam Transforming Applications

Wavelength Selective Switches (WSS) appear as the key building blocks towards realizing next generation flexible-grid WDM optical networks. Lately, research attempts have shifted from pure bulky free-space WSS implementations to hybrid approaches where waveguide-based frontends (WFEs) are combined with a limited number of free-space components, enabling in this way the beam transforming functionality with lower cost and reduced footprint. In this communication we present our recent work on InP and Polymer waveguide-based frontend designs towards implementing an integrated waveguide frontend for hybrid WSSs.